Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. has announced it will release key new Yu-Gi-Oh! titles across a number of formats in 2016, allowing an even wider audience to enjoy the series, which is already popular worldwide as a card game and range of console titles.

In readiness of this milestone year, KONAMI is engaged in a number of initiatives to bring the fun of the Yu-Gi-Oh! series to an ever larger range of devices, a new game for the Nintendo 3DS platform will be released in the summer.

Due out this digitally this summer in Japan, Yu-Gi-Oh! Saikyou Card Battle, the 3DS title features a cast of game-original characters (it is unknown if existing characters will appear). Players take on the role of the protagonist, a young boy with fiery hair, as he duels against a number of rivals. There is also a character named Guide-san who will support you in duels (and is similar in appearance to the character on the “Tour Guide From The Underworld” card). The game will be free-to-play (with in-game purchases).

Here are the characters introduced in the scan:

The red-haired kid is the ”Protagonist”, indicating we will be able to name him.

The green-haired kid is Psychic Tendou, who specializes in psychic types.

The red haired girl is Guide-san, the support character that guides you through tutorials, you can see what appears to be the Kaiba Corp logo on her hat.

Saikyou Card Battle will center around a brand new tournament held after Battle City known as the Legend Challenge. The new 3DS game emphasizes Speed Duels for Saikyou Card Battle, which like the upcoming Duel Links mobile game, makes duels much faster.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Saikyou Card Battles will have Speed Duels.

Speed Duels lets both sides start with 4000 lifepoints instead of the usual 8000, and have only three monster and three spell/trap card zones. Although the first screenshots for Saikyou Card Battle show Speed Duels, it’s still unknown whether normal duels will be a part of this new game.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Saikyou Card Battle will also have cards from the latest Start Deck so players can have the most up to date cards while dueling. Your character will also have new rivals that include Dark Kuroda and Light Tsukiko.

Updates and More..

Konami brought the Yu-Gi-Oh! Saikyou Card Battle 3DS game to the Japanese Nintendo eShop this week and with it new information regarding how the game plays and looks have come out.

Take a look at the first minutes of Japanese gameplay from the new game from YouTube user Xeogran

When you first boot up the game, you’ll meet Kaiba before meeting with a woman (dressed as a nurse?) as she teaches you the basics of Duel Monsters.

But in Saikyou Card Battle, the duels are much different. You’ll be having Speed Duels instead of the normal ones. Speed Duels limit each player’s lifepoints to 4000 instead of 8000 and only three monsters and three traps/spells can be on their side of the field at a time, which is half of what is normally allowed.

We also get to see some, admittedly, impressive battle graphics when monsters are summoned and attack. From previous scans of the game, and how past Yu-Gi-Oh! Games worked, we figured only signature monsters would get the animation but we see here that every monster used in battle had a 3D model.

According to V-Jump — via The Organization — Saikyou Card Battle will center around a brand new tournament held after Battle City known as the Legend Challenge.

Saikyou Card Battle is available now in the Japanese Nintendo eShop, no word on a North American release has been given yet.